


Only Love can Hurt like this

by swaneewhistleandkazoo



Category: Carnival Row (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Longing, Love Hurts, Regret, Romance, Self-Esteem Issues, minor self loathing, season 1 episode 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 21:10:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20785145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swaneewhistleandkazoo/pseuds/swaneewhistleandkazoo
Summary: Philo is confronted by Vignette after she finds out he's alive.





	Only Love can Hurt like this

It isn’t the first time he’s had a knife held to his throat.

In face it isn’t even the first time she’s held a knife to his throat.

It takes a few heartbeats for his sleep fogged brain to catch up with the situation and go from _“Arg, something’s attacking me!!!” _to _“She’s here! we found each other again”_. The blade is cold against his neck, its sharp edge rasping against his skin, her weight warm on his torso. Disregarding the very real threat to his life in that moment gazing up into her beautifully furious face, pure joy surged up within his chest like a starburst.

Despite the danger he can’t help gazing up at her, eyes darting around trying to absorbing all of her, just to feed his hungry eyes the slight of her.

Seven years, it’s been seven years since he last laid eyes on her and she’s still the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, he’d been kidding himself that anyone else could fill the gaping hole he’d carved into his heart when he’d left her. At first glance it doesn’t look like she’s changed as much as he has, after all the fae age slower than humans or half bloods. Even her furious expression, lips curled up slightly at the corners with the beginning of a snarl isn’t really any different from those first few weeks at the Mimastry when she didn’t trust him is familiar. But her green eyes are the same as the ones he sees in his dingy mirror every morning when he gets dressed, desolate, full of deep, jagged and painful grief and the hurt that his betrayal has caused her.

_Oh Vignette, I’m so sorry. _

The first words out of her mouth are entirely the words he thought she would say if he ever saw her again.

“You lying shit.” She ground out, almost wordless with rage. He winced slightly at her declaration, he deserved her rage. She swallowed hard trying desperately to control her emotions before she could continue.

“You’re alive.” She shook her head slightly almost in denial and continued bitterly “Mima Roosen came to me with blood on her hands” Her wings flared with agitation he could feel the eddies they made in the air against his fingers. “She told me you died in her arms.”

Her eyes slid closed, the internal struggle with her emotions plain as on her face before she asked very softly, sorrowfully, the question he dreaded answering “Why did she lie to me?”

He’s done this to her, he realised dejectedly, guilt weighing heavily down on his soul as a sharp agonizing lump formed in his throat that made it hard to swallow. His lies has done this, hurt her more than his death ever could have done. It had torn him apart to leave her but as Tourmaline has suggested he had hoped that he’d released her from a burden that could get her killed, he’d only ever put her in danger, that she could move on and be safe with someone else. 

A regretful sob tried to work its way past the lump in his throat, which he ruthlessly suppressed; she deserves the truth no matter how much it hurt him to say. He wanted her to understand that the blame lay solely on his shoulders. That she was his entire world and he only left her because he wanted her to be safe and free from the wingless burden that would put her in danger. Eyes burning with unshed tears he answered her, his voice hoarse with remorse.

“Because I told her too.”

Her pale face crumpled with blow at his words dealt her and tightened with pain as a slight sob escaped from her. Dejectedly her chin dropped towards her chest and he ached to reach out and sooth her pain. Miserably her eyes searching his face desperately for answers “We told each other everything.” she whispered beseechingly “Couldn’t you have at least told me goodbye?”

“I wanted to” Truthfully he’d wanted to, but he’d known that if he’d spoken to her one more time he’d never have the strength to leave her. Unable to help himself, he brought his bandaged hand to cup her jaw gently, his fingers tangling in her short fine hair, thumb stroking the soft smooth skin of her cheek soothingly in an attempt to comfort her. He’d never hated a bandage more than he did now. “I _never_ meant to hurt you”

For a heart stopping moment, she leaned, cat like, into his touch and seemed to absorb some of the comfort he was offering her, her thin shoulders shuddering with breathless little sobs.

“Hurt me?” Her expression crumpled with grief “You destroyed me” she wept brokenly teeth bared, her every agony filled word cut him deeply to the bone, damming him to the depths of a hell of his own making. “I waited for you and you left me in the ashes of my homeland with nothing but grief for seven years!”

Utterly wretched, a tear escaped out of corner of his eye and made its way slowly down his cheek. He barely noticed its passage because he’s so wrapped up in his remorse and the intoxication her presence brings him. Portia could have burst into his room with the entirety of the Constabulary and the inhabitants of Tetterby Hotel right now and he wouldn’t have given them any more notice than if they were paint on the walls.

She’s struggling internally; he can sense it, warring over how she feels towards him. Love battling against grief, rage, pain and a desire for vengeance. For an eternal moment she swayed towards him, their lips less than a breath. For a while he’d thought that maybe the love they’d felt for each other would have faded over time but no. Even after everything their love for each other binds them together he can feel it in his pounding heart, reverberating through his skin and hers.

With a low snarl she hardened her resolve and kindled it to a raging inferno. He’s not surprised just saddened, after all the chasm he’s caused between them is too great to be bridged by just an apology and love alone. Chest heaving, wings flared aggressively she forced the knife harder against his throat to the point it almost broke his skin. “I should have done this the day we met!” she told him darkly.

Instinctively at the feeling of increased pressure on his windpipe he’d raised his hands to try to defend himself. But after seeing the devastation he’s caused her he almost agrees with her, she should have done it. To spare her from what he’d done. Even though she would have had to mop the flagstones of the library, a task she despised, several times over to remove the taint of his Faan-troight blood and endure a scolding from Mima Roosen for senseless violence in a holy place.

“Do it” He told her quietly.

Very slowly so he didn’t startle her he lowered his arms so they were pressed passively by his sides, the sheets rough and unpleasant compare to her skin. He didn’t particularly want to die but if his death was what she needed to heal from the wounds he’d inflicted upon her and give her some closure, then so be it.

It would be his penitence.

“Do it” He stressed gently.

He would do anything, anything to alleviate the pain he’d caused her.

For an agonising moment he lay there, her weight on his chest with her trembling, wings fluttering with distress as she wavered on the precipice of the irreversible decision. Against his collarbone her hand on the knife shook almost violently. He didn’t try to stop her, to influence her decision just lay there passively watching the emotions cross her face like cloud shadows on an open plain.

If she’s going to kill him then the last thing he wants to see is her face.

An unreadable emotion flared in her eyes for a moment and abruptly the pressure of the knife edge on his windpipe was alleviated. Relived he breathed deeply, filling his lung with oxygen. His heart was racing with relief that he got to live a little longer that he felt light headed. As she threw the knife away somewhere behind her, Vignette whispered coldly to him “You’re not worth it”

Heart in his throat, he could only watch as she swung herself off his torso and clamber of the bed. Unable to stop himself he sat up, blanket around his waist, the chill of the breeze through the open window biting at the bare skin of his arms and watched her stalk away from him.

About halfway to the window she half turned and looked at him with cold hurt eyes and a bleak expression on her face.

“I wish you had died” She told him bitterly and without looking back ducked out of the window and winged her way into the night sky back to wherever she was staying now. A familiar thrumming pain flared in his scars the way they always did when he felt the instinctive need to fly. But he let her go watching until her faint outline disappeared into the darkness.

And once again tonight he was left alone, bereft in the dark with nothing but his regrets, self-recriminations and strangely enough…

…Hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed.


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